Vital Signs

Surgeon Julien Broussard thrives on control-over his hands in the operating room and his emotions everywhere else. Intensely private and guarded, he keeps his personal life compartmentalized: Grindr hookups, clinical detachment, and nothing that could demand vulnerability.

Then Dr. Marcus Webb arrives-Tulane's new anesthesiologist and everything Julien isn't. Confident, warm, and effortlessly magnetic, Marcus moves through the hospital surrounded by friends and easy charm. In the OR, their partnership is seamless-quiet thank-yous, shared respect, and an unspoken understanding that quickly turns playful, then unmistakably flirtatious.

As professional admiration deepens into something neither of them expected, Julien finds himself wanting more than he's allowed himself in years. But Marcus has never dated a man, isn't out to his family, and is hiding a secret that could shatter everything they're building.

Can their connection survive vulnerability, secrecy, and Julien's own self-destruction-or will fear win out over the best thing that's ever happened to him?